Post 457 - Not many people know that Major Edward A. Murphy, Jr. (1918–1990), an American aerospace engineer working at Edwards Air Force Base, was the originator of the well-known Murphy's Law in 1949. Frustrated with a device that wouldn't work consistently due to an error in wiring, he remarked, "If there's any way to do it wrong, he will," referring to the technician who had wired the device. Hence,
Murphy's Law - If anything can go wrong, it will.
Since Murphy's time, many other less well known laws have been postulated. Here are just a few of them:
Iles's Law - There's always an easier way to do it.
Cotter's Law - Things will be damaged in direct proportion to their value.
Boling's Law - If you're feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it.
Rudin's Law - In crises that force people to choose among alternative courses of action, most people will choose the worst one possible.
The Fifth Law on Thermodynamics - Things get worse under pressure.
Etorre's Law - The other line always moves faster.
Boob's Law - You always find something the last place you look.
Paul's Law - You can't fall off the floor.
Barbara's Law - It works better if you plug it in.
Bueller's Law - Whenever something is completely understood, some damn fool discovers something which either makes it obsolete or changes it beyond all recognition.
Jon's Law - A person's expertise varies in inverse proportion to the number of statements understood by the general public.
Osborn's Law - Variables won't; constants aren't.
Jones's Law - Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.
Howard's Law - A man with one watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure.
Emily's Law - You can't tell how deep a puddle is until you step in it.
Fett's Law - Never replicate a successful experiment.
Caitlan's Law - All great discoveries are made by mistake. The greater the funding, the longer it takes to make the mistake.
Johnson's Law - If you miss one issue of a magazine, it will be the issue which contained the article, story or installment you were most anxious to read.
Mary's Law - The minute you sit down on the toilet, the phone will wring.
Etc, etc.
What's your favorite version of Murphy's Law?
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1 comment:
No so much a version as a corollary that sums up many of the different takes - Murphy was an optimist
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